Stay on target

By this point, Black Lightning has firmly established what kind of superhero show it intends to be. Now it has to figure out where to take things from here. We have an older hero coming out of retirement in the face of rampant gang violence in his city. We have a younger superhero just discovering her powers. All the show needs is something for these characters to do. By the end of last night’s episode, it didn’t quite find that, but it set some interesting things in motion. It’s the first time we get a clear idea of where the season plans to take Jefferson Pierce and his family.

Right away, Black Lightning has to deal with something other than The 100, at least at first. Hearing a strange noise in the boys’ bathroom of his school, Jefferson rushes in to find a boy going into an uncontrolable rage. Rage that gives him super strength. Jefferson tries to calm the situation with words, but soon has to resort to some well-placed lightning bolts to knock the kid out. He finds a strange drug in the boy’s pockets and immediately suspects the 100. One fight with a dealer later, he has a name: Two Bits. Even the dealer knows it sounds kind of dumb. Jefferson also gets a lead from the kid he found in the bathroom. He learns the name of the dealer who sold the strange drug, which we learn is called Green Light. Unfortunately, that dealer is already dead. He overdosed on his own supply.

Meanwhile, Tobias Whale is feeling some heat from Black Lightning’s recent activities. His boss, Lady Eve is losing money. With Black Lightning’s return, people aren’t as scared of Tobias anymore. She makes it clear he needs to do something about that. People may not be scared of Tobias, but they should be scared of Lady Eve. She has tremendous presence in every scene she’s in, and she’s terrifying. When their conversation ends and you realize she’s been sewing up an awake, living person… chills. Tobias gets right on making people fear him again, starting with the doctor who originally reported Black Lightning’s death. Since Black Lightning is still alive, he decides to take the doctor’s life.

Anissa also gets to explore her heroic side this episode. She happens upon two drug dealers trying to sell to her students. She gets the girls to safety and stares down the dealers. It’s a great moment, and you know it won’t be too long before she does a lot more than stare. It takes a little bit to get there. Just as her father did, she has to decide to take the first step towards vigilantism. At a family dinner with Inspector Henderson that night, she bristles at Henderson’s implication that Black Lightning is a criminal. She goes as far as to say that the superhero is doing the police’s job for them. The exchange gets her so heated, she immediately takes her anger out on the dealers from earlier. She sends them flying across the gas station parking lot with one punch. As cool as it looks, that kind of violence isn’t clean, and Anissa learns that being a vigilante isn’t as easy as Black Lightning makes it look. She realizes she’s done some serious harm to these guys. Yeah, they’re drug dealers, but she can’t just leave them for dead. She calls an ambulance. I guess this is the moment she decides she isn’t a murderer.

While Anissa is dealing with her own superhero awakening, Jefferson is investigating the source of Green Light. It turns out he and Two Bits grew up together. At first, he tries to get information out of him by posing as a concerned old friend. When that gets him nowhere, he returns as Black Lightning. Electric punches are much more persuasive. He gets a drop location but not much else. That turns out to be more helpful than it sounds. His new suit has X-Ray vision. That makes things easier. Or it would if he weren’t distracted by a loud bang nearby. That’s Anissa, once again using her powers, only this time not out of anger. She and her new girlfriend, Grace are walking out of a bar when some strange men attack them. When Grace gets knocked out, Anissa goes into action. She does some serious damage to the attackers, which she doesn’t feel nearly as bad about. It certainly helps that Grace agrees that Anissa should hurt bad people if she has the power to do so. We know a father-daugher superhero confrontation is coming, but it doesn’t happen this episode. By the time Black Lightning checks out the loud noises he heard, Grace and Anissa are gone.

Marvin “Krondon” Jones III as Tobias (Photo: Carin Baer/The CW)

This is the first episode that doesn’t have a ton of forward momentum. It’s all set-up for future dilemmas and confrontations to come. Thankfully, this show recognizes that it has to give us some superhero action even during a setup episode like this. Jefferson gets a minor victory in the end. The kid from the beginning runs to a drug den for another dose. His dad calls, asking Jefferson for help. One loud, hallway punch-fight later, the boy is safe. It’s a fun action sequence, but what’s really interesting is what it sets up for the future. Due to Jefferson’s unwillingness to expel the kid from school, he’s forced to give up final say over disciplinary issues. In the future, they’ll be handled by a vote from the board. It’s implied that the board is largely made up of older white people. And they probably won’t have as much sympathy or understanding for the students’ situations as Jefferson does.

Tobias is emerging as more of a villain as well. We meet his henchwoman, Syonide, though we don’t see her do much yet. She is smart though. When news breaks that Khalil’s shooting during the protest last week severed his spinal cord, she sees an opportunity. At her suggestion, Tobias makes a massive donation to pay for Khalil’s hospital bills. Now on his good side, he visits Khalil in the hospital at night and convinces him that Black Lightning is the reason he’s paralyzed. It sounds like Tobias wants to turn Khalil into a supervillain. And since Khalil is Jennifer Pierce’s boyfriend, that’s going to make for a much tougher fight than anything Black Lightning’s faced so far. This episode may not have been Black Lightning’s best, but it set a lot of different parts in motion. It made some big promises, but from what we’ve seen so far, I have no doubt this show can live up to them.